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WASHINGTON — The biggest case facing the Supreme Court in its next term will test the relative powers of the White House and Congress in making government appointments. Barring a procedural draw, one of them will win.

That will be a welcome relief to the victorious party after the recently concluded term, in which the court didn't look very kindly on its fellow branches of government.

In the last seven days alone of the term that ended June 26, the court struck down key portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and a 2003 law regulating AIDS funding.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who has tangled with the Obama administration and Congress in the past, wrote two of the decisions. He sought to uphold DOMA — against the administration's wishes — after criticizing Obama during oral arguments in March for enforcing but not defending the statute.

Over the course of the nine-month term, the government racked up a 44% winning percentage, far from the customary 70% or higher. Miguel Estrada, a conservative lawyer who once served in the solicitor general's office, quipped the record would have been better if the government chose sides by lottery or coin toss.

It wasn't the litigators' fault, Estrada said; rather, he blamed the "wackiness" of the administration's arguments before the court.

There's another side to that argument, of course — that the conservative-leaning court granted little consideration to the rights of Congress and the White House in writing laws, from the landmark voting rights statute to employment discrimination laws the justices circumvented last month.

"What has become of the court's usual restraint?" asked Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a stinging dissent in the voting rights case. Congress, she said, "should garner this court's unstinting approbation."

Restraint and approbation haven't been the watchwords of the court when it comes to Congress and the White House, at least not recently. Whether it's a case of legal arguments, policy differences or just bad blood, the political and judicial branches haven't been seeing eye to eye:

•In his opinion striking down Congress' method for determining which states must seek federal approval for voting changes, Roberts said lawmakers "re-enacted a formula based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relation to the present day."

•The next day, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy accused Congress of abusing its power. "The power the Constitution grants it also restrains," he wrote. "And though Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national policy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

•A week earlier, Roberts ruled that the government cannot require groups fighting AIDS with federal funds to denounce prostitution and sex trafficking. "Freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say," he wrote, quoting from an earlier decision.

Either Congress or the White House can expect to come out on top in the biggest case of the next term, which tests the power of the president to make "recess appointments" by filling positions during breaks in Senate sessions. The case hinges on what defines a recess.

Neither political branch has fared particularly well before the court recently. During last year's extraordinary three days of oral arguments on Obama's health care law, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia noted, "There is such a thing as legislative inertia."

Though Congress got pounded on the last two days of the term when the court struck down parts of the voting and same-sex marriage laws, the justices' relationship with the White House is even more striking. Not since the 1930s, perhaps, has the court's ruling majority differed so much in principle with the administration in power.

The struggle is due in large part to Associate Justice Samuel Alito's confirmation in 2006 and Obama's election in 2008. That combustible concoction produced perhaps the most visible sign of the no-love-lost relationship in 2010, when Obama used his State of the Union Address to criticize the court's decision in the Citizens United case lifting restrictions on political spending by corporations and labor unions. Alito, seated with other justices in the House chamber, shook his head and mouthed the words "not true."

For Roberts and Obama, the battle has at times seemed personal. They share a special place in history — Roberts as the 17th chief justice, Obama as the 17th president elected to a second term. They have performed the presidential oath of office four times, starting with Roberts' initial goof and do-over in 2009 and ending with a Sunday-Monday double-header this year.

But their true feelings may have been on display in March during oral arguments in the Defense of Marriage Act case. Noting that Obama refused to defend the law but was still enforcing it, Roberts said the president should "have the courage of his convictions."

On that one, Obama had the last laugh. Three months after those arguments, the court declared DOMA unconstitutional over Roberts' objections — then Roberts himself delivered the procedural ruling that re-established the right to same-sex marriage in California.